I dialed.  I waited through the ringing.  I acknowledged that I liked the ringing rather than having to listen to someone’s choice of tinny music through a tinny speaker.  I know it’s getting better, but somehow the recorded ringer music always just seemed abrupt and distorted.  And yes, I liked the scritchy noise of vinyl.  It gave music another layer of sound. Which isn’t to say I don’t have just about everything I like on mp3, just that I appreciate the different layers, like a parfait, or an ogre.

She picked up.

“Hi, Rohana. Don’t hang up.”

“Really?” she asked.  “Why would I bother answering it just to hang up on you?  I have caller ID. I could have let it go to voicemail.”

“I guess you would have been making a point.”

“Speaking of which,” she trailed off.

“Um, yeah. My point.  Do you know… wow, this sounds kind of crazy.  Except I’m not.”

“Professional opinion precluded.”

“You’re a professional? That’s what I’m looking for.”

“Well, not that type, I have to admit.”  Rohana paused.  “You need a shrink?”

“I want to waggle my eyebrows at that and say that `that’s what she said,’ but I just don’t like the term. I mean I need to  expand my horizons, not make them smaller.”

“I thought men feared commitment.”

I chuckled. “I don’t think I’m that far gone.”

“It’s the weird stuff, isn’t it?  Getting to you?” she asked. There was kind of a thing in her voice, like an angle to the question.

“Well, I’m looking for someone who isn’t shy about the weird, for sure.  Someone clued in, you know?”

“A witch?” she asked, and if there was doubt in her voice I couldn’t fault her.

“If that’s the way it has to go…” I trailed off.

“Yeah.”  She sighed.  “You owe me for this.”

“I’ll owe you, yes.”  It had magical consequences, but if I trusted her this far, I was going to have to continue.

“I know people.  Healers do their frickin’ best not to get involved in wars, but someone always drags us in,” she sighed again.

“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m neutral. I’m Switzerland.  I just close doors and run and hide when there looks to be fighting. I’m no hero.”

“Huh,” she grunted.  “You.  Not a hero.  Aren’t you a gamer?”

“Um, yeah. So I know that magic items are worse than live grenades.  To run away from dragons and liches and to kill all the orcs, if we’re name-calling.”

“Gamers have the biggest hero complexes. White knights, have to go rescue people, have to go see through the evil plans.”

“That’s not me,” I denied, immediately.

“Really? If Maggie called you for help, what would you do?” she asked.  I thought I remembered someone else asking me this question.  Why would the answer change?

“I’m wounded, really, I am.”  I sighed.  “I’d think about it.  I’d think more about hanging up.  Or not answering the phone at all.” I shook my head.  “I wouldn’t do it.”

“But it’d eat you up inside, wouldn’t it?”

“She doesn’t deserve it from me.”  Time heals all wounds, they say.  Even the ones that leave scars.  I could be the Fisher King, or I could heal, I guess.

“Good.  Keep telling yourself that.  Alright, I’ll text you an address and a name when I get the okay.”

“The okay?” I was pretty much sure she just meant in contact with the mysterious stranger, but I figured I’d ask.  More information certainly couldn’t hurt.

“She’s a bit of a recluse, this one. Hermit up on the mountain kind of schtick,” Rohana chuckled a bit. “You’ll get along great.”

“Thanks, I think.”

She just chuckled again and hung up.  I sighed.

Lunch was pretty forgettable.  The spriggan sibs were consulting over a map of what, at a glance, looked like Middle Earth.  They had a lot of ways to keep themselves busy and unattached to the real world. It could be a lot worse; they could be into politics.

I played some match-3 games while eating, just to fill the time.  Zach had been a bad influence on me, bringing out just the slightest bit of a competitive edge where the gamification was concerned; sometimes getting more points than him was the whole exercise.  I preferred the match-3 games with multiple conditions, I decided, rather than simply a counter for reward.

My phone beeped its “text message” chime, and I pulled it out of my pocket in a hurry.  A name and an address.  Senga.  The name was not familiar, but the address was fairly close.  Walking close if it was nice out, at least.

I pulled aside the blind in the front window and looked out.  Like many a day, the reply was hazy and I should try again. I was no good with weather; there were too many variables, too many wishes in the mix.  But it was nice enough to keep the windows open, so I figured it would be a good walk.

“Who’s my babysitter for my next adventure?” I asked the muttering fey.

Nen looked up. “Self-denigration is a sign of concern over the imbalance of power,” he said. “It’s an asymmetrical form of humour.”

“Have you been reading the psychology books again?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he grinned.  “That said, remember the principle that the parent is often grounded along with the child, and maybe you will see that it isn’t that out of whack.”

“‘Whack’ being one of those official psychological terms, I suppose?”

“Along with ‘whoo-hoo’ and the vertical circling of a finger by the head,” he agreed.

“Good to know.  I just doubt that I can shout, ‘You have no power over me,’ and you flutter away like a deck of cards.  Or are dealt away.  Huh – that sounds a bit more gangster than I meant.  Shuffled away,” I decided.

“If you have not yet guessed the provenance of our task, I am still bound not to reveal it,” he sighed.  “Rayya will be remaining to protect the things here, and I shall travel with you.”

“Yay,” I said with all the enthusiasm I felt. I got up, slipped on some shoes, and grabbed my jacket.  It was looking weathered, and kind of the worse for it.  Of course, salt water on suede was probably a metaphor somewhere.

Nen brushed back his hair, and smoothed out his skirt. Or whatever.  I thought about asking him to change, but realized he probably didn’t have much to say about my wardrobe, either.  Maybe I’d ask him to do his hiding-away-in-plain-sight thing when we got there.

He seemed content to follow as I walked down the steps and down the street.  My neighbor Bea was working on her lawn, doing whatever kind of esoteric pieces kept it green and lush. She waved a distracted hand at me, and I nodded as I passed.  She gave a dirty glance at Nen, but I expected it. However she saw him, at least she hadn’t called social services on me. It was probably the plaid.

Colorado gets a ridiculous amount of sunshine, and despite the haze, today was no exception.  I was warm in just half a block, but not confident enough to take off the jacket.  A burst of wind could cut to the bone.  Nen didn’t keep up a conversation, so I just enjoyed the quiet.  A car passed.  A whirlwind of crows rose up from the park nearby, their cawing suggesting some kind of dispute being taken to parliament.  A sparrow flashed in front of me, and one of the neighborhood cats watched us with its orange-green eyes.  The sidewalk curved for wheelchair access, the red cobbles a momentary break in the monotony of grey concrete.  I looked both ways before crossing.  Safety first and all.

Nen made a “hsst,” noise, and I felt a gentle tug on my sleeve.  “‘Ware,” he said.

“Or you’ll go all Paul Bunyan?” I asked, looking around.  Nen and Rayya very rarely touched me or anybody else, and that shocked me for a moment.  He didn’t respond to the comment, though.  It was the plaid.

I didn’t see anything suspicious.  A truck parked on the road.  A mailbox.  A couple of light poles.  Well-kept fencing.  An ad for a cell phone company that allows free calls to Mexico.  I guess the crushed convenience store cup might have been a monster in disguise. I was still suspicious of leftover rubber tread on the road, after all.  And I avoided prairie dogs as if they might have the plague.

“If our path takes us to the right, let me have the place on your left,” he said.

“Um, sure,” I said.  “Mind telling me what to watch out for?  Will I need to duck, or roll to the side, or what?”

“Can you not sense it?” he asked.

“Uh, human, remember?”

He growled.  “An unnecessary distinction.  You are not … inert,” he decided.

“Nope, I’m also not a quiescent confection.”  I was pretty sure I knew what he meant, but I wanted to yank his chain a bit anyway.

“You are not unaware of the energy flows,” he said, sounding frustrated.

“No, but I usually have to concentrate to find them.  If they’re obvious, I’m in the wrong place and should be backing off quickly.”

“So you answer your own question,” he said.

“Ah, the old exercise for the student.”  I rolled my eyes.  I stopped next to the truck and half-closed my eyes, trying to open myself up to the currents of power.   There was something… something I would describe as big, but it was more that it was not there, a null space somewhere up ahead.  Odd.

“Does our quest take that route?” he asked.

“Um, yeah.”  I had a feeling that it took us right to it.  I released my attention on the flows and went back to paying attention to the sun on my back and the world more mundane.  “‘Fraid so.”

He glanced up at me, as if he were going to ask something more, but then shrugged and took the left hand side.  His stride grew slightly to match mine.

I made my way gingerly across a major street, and then between cars packed in for parking on both sides of the road.  The houses here were nicer than just a few blocks away, more personality, less clone-stamp.  A mailbox decorated with birds, the hinge to hold it shut cleverly painted a hooked beak.  A lattice where roses lazily climbed.  A dozen porches, most with one or two chairs.  A lone newspaper sadly abandoned in its plastic sheathe.

The house showed tan brick and dark red painted wood.  A line of bindweed wrapped near the fence.  Everything had strong lines and a bit of a boxy nature to it.  I checked the address.  “This is it,” I said.

“I cannae go in there,” Nen said, concerned.

“What, bad mojo?” I asked.

“Nae, I cannae enter.”

I looked around.  He’d gone all Scottish on me again.  No horseshoes.  No sprays of “fae-be-gone” that I could see or smell.  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

He gestured.  “If’n ye go in there, ye are on yer own,” he said.  “Of course, ye should be perfectly safe.”  He didn’t sound convincing.

“I don’t understand.  Why can’t you go in?” I tried reaching out again… and was blocked by the most powerful door I had ever felt.  Someone really, really, didn’t want anything inside.

All there was obviously was a white metal gate, with a handle and a latch, up a couple of stone stairs.  Nothing like the level of shielding I could feel.  I listened to the comforting thrum of a door in harmony with its surroundings.  I liked this place.

“I will await ye here,” he said.

“Okie-dokie,” I said.  I opened up the gate and let myself in, closing it behind me.  Once inside the shields, I felt even better.  Familiar.  Kind of like Zach’s work.  I figured it out, quickly.  Whatever else this Senga was, she was a Closer.

I hesitated at the door.  There was no screen, but there was both a bronzed knocking device and a doorbell.  Which one was appropriate to use? Had I misread the cues and was supposed to call ahead? No, I hadn’t gotten a phone number. Mail a letter? The technology still existed, but I didn’t have any stamps.  Or envelopes.

I decided to try knocking first, so it was less intrusive.  You never knew what kind of doorbell someone might have, whether it was a buzzer, or a loud clang, or the Looney Toons theme song.  (I had never actually heard that last as a doorbell. A ring tone, maybe.)

The door opened under my hand, and I nearly fell back off the steps to the porch in my surprise.

“Well?” she asked.

She was very short. I suppose I should have used terms like small, or petite, because she was built like a ballet dancer, and held herself like a marine sergeant. Her face was a topographic map of wrinkles, history carved in its worship of sun and smile.  Her eyes were bright, a color somewhere between green and blue.  Her hair was grey like iron or steel.

“You smell like demons,” she said, before I could greet her or do anything that the script of social interaction usually demanded at that point.

“Demons don’t exist,” I shot back.  If I had been polite, I would have maybe made a question of it, but I was feeling a bit ornery from the situation.

“Extradimensional travellers, then,” she said, enunciating it carefully.  “Faeries, vampires, aliens, Dragons…” she trailed off, and then she punched me in the shoulder with a finger.  “Demons,” she explained.

“What do they smell like?” I countered.

“Well,” she considered.  “I suppose they ought to smell like sulphur.  Or perfume.  At least, the ones who inhabit department stores usually do,” she took a step back.  “Come inside,” she demanded, stepping back and pulling the door in towards her.  “It’s a blurring.  In your aura.”

“You see auras?” I asked, moving into the small hallway beyond the door.  In front of me was a kitchen and dining room.  To the right, some stairs leading up, and to the left, a living room.  A small altar was laid on the table here in the hall, with a mirror above it.  Smelled like autumn, with cinnamon and some kind of pumpkin spice.

“I see fools, and magicians,” she said.  She pulled me into the living room with a quick pinch to my elbow, and a swift kick to close the door behind us. It didn’t slam – she had hit the perfect amount of pressure to balance the door firmly into the frame.  “Emperors, empresses, hanged men and lovers,” she said.

“Devils? Chariots?” I asked.

“I don’t do business with them,” she said, and she made a little sniffling noise.  “Sit, sit you down, sit,” she pointed me to a leather couch.

“If you offer me a meat pie, I’m declining,” I said, sitting down on the couch.  It squeaked underneath me.

Her expression turned somewhat that combination of amused and annoyed I was used to getting from women.   “I have seen customers within the last few weeks,” she said.  “And none of them have been fed meat.”

“Good, because while I could probably use a shave,” I ran my hand across my chin, “I am always afraid people will fail to get my references.”

“William of Occam does a good job, but he isn’t quick with the subtle.” She sat across from me, on the arm of the couch, perching less like a bird and more like a hungry puma.  She looked at me carefully, and I had a feeling she wasn’t just using her eyes to do it.

I often wished I had more than a half-taught, half-instinctive idea about shielding from such things. I know I bristle on a metaphysical level, but that might be all.  Certainly isn’t proof against Dragons, but then, what is?

“Auras?” I prompted.

“Shhh,” she shushed me.  “I’m still reading the cover, trying to decide if it’s worth opening and riffling through the pages.”

“It’s not all written yet,” I demurred.

“No, but the story has involved some local celebrities, and looks to have taken you outside the local haunts.”  She narrowed her eyes.  “Which Dragon?”

“Which one?” I countered.

“More than one? You like trouble,” she declared.

“No, no, I don’t,” I said.  I didn’t usually feel quite this aggravated so easily, but she seemed to thrive on my argumentative responses.

“Then why do you invite it?”

“I didn’t.  I gave it an eviction notice. I called the sheriff’s office, and had them drag its stuff to the curb.”

“You let it back in when it raised its dewy eyes towards you and told you it loved you and wouldn’t do it again.”

“Hey, wait a second, shouldn’t I be laying down and telling you about my mother?”

“Just be quiet for a moment,” she snapped, and I was.  I wasn’t quiet like Peredur would have made me quiet, I was quiet because it was the right thing to do, and as defiant as I sometimes got, I relented. It didn’t cost me anything.  It wasn’t a fight I needed to have.

I felt myself relaxing into the couch. “How did you do that?” I asked after a moment.

“It’s what I’ve become,” she said.  She moved over to a rolling chair across from me, and the ballet metaphor followed, as she did it with grace and a flowing method.

“But not what you were?” I asked.

“I have become something I always was, but it’s a matter of recognition and embrace. I could have made different choices, and I would be something different, and yet, still me.” She looked at me, and her eyes were darker, more a green-orange, maybe. “It’s a lesson you will need.”

“Are you a teacher?”

“I have been that, and I may sometimes stray back to that path. I am a Closer,” she said. “Perhaps not as powerful as you, but finesse can do things strength cannot, and, alas, vice versa.”

“Why don’t I…” I started to ask a question that I swallowed with a, “Nevermind.”

“Why don’t you feel attracted to me?” she asked.  Her smile was beautiful.  “Because I have closed that door.  You should feel comfortable, not aroused.”  She made it sound matter-of-fact.  “My power finds yours dazzling, but I have not given it leash to rub against you and purr.”

“That’s like mixing a dog and a cat metaphor,” I said.

“Maybe I was thinking bunnies,” she shrugged, but she smiled a bit more.  She had good teeth.  “Nevertheless, that tells me much.  I am having to speed read a little, try to grasp the story in-between the lines.  Closer. Mostly self-taught, got involved with things over your head, now trying to learn to swim?”

“Metaphors are a little mixed, but yeah, that’s, um, that’s really the gist of it.”

“What does a Closer do?” she asked me.

I looked at her. “Is this a trick question?”

“Yes and no,” she said.  “It depends.  How you answer is going to tell me where you’re lacking, yes, and where you’re strong. Do you want to amend it because of that?”

“Well, I close things. Holes in Reality.”

She nods. “Reality is like an overused sock?  Or your favourite underwear?”

“Um, both of those analogies kind of make me uncomfortable.”

“Swiss cheese? Lava rock?  Pumice, rather? Honeycomb? A television show plotline? Chain mail? No, you would wear that and you said clothing makes you uncomfortable.”

“That’s not what I said,” I complained.

“Oh, I suppose not,” she said. “Mesh?”

“Get to the point,” I sighed.

“I just think the phrasing suggests a very fragile form of Reality.  You’re not a Closer. You’re a knitter.  A darner.  A seamstress.”

“Hey,” I said, sitting back up.  “I don’t think you need to call me names.  Not that there’s anything wrong with knitting. Or sewing.  You just used it pejoratively.”

“What would happen if Reality wasn’t patched back together?”

“Eventually it would collapse,” I said.

“Do you believe that?”

“There are now three of us in the same general vicinity.  I don’t have census figures, but that suggests either a hellmouth or some other kind of catastrophe to me.  Why have Closers if Things aren’t constantly leaving doors open?”

“Doors work both ways,” she said, flatly.  “Why aren’t other places, other Realities trying to keep us out?”

“Maybe they want something in here? Maybe they do, and we never find those places? Maybe Mars needs women?”

“Too many ‘maybes’ means you don’t know for sure. You have ideas, but you don’t have solid facts.  You seem to presume we’re the ultimate Reality, that we’re what everything desires.”

“Well,” I paused, “Yeah.  I mean, this is the place I know.  I kind of like it.”

“Yet, your Reality and mine are different, are they not?”

“That’s philosophical.  We share more similarities than differences, and while our perception somewhat modifies what is perceived, it’s not on a level that makes the word ‘quantum’ do anything but shiver.”

She chuckled, somewhat less deep-seated and more of an explosion from her nose.  “I will leave that one for now, although I think there are other options.  Next question.  Why are you brushed with the magic of so many other places?”

“I live with two cool Spriggan cats and the occasional Dragon makes me come over and babysit.”

She laughed out loud. “I think you probably cut a lot of corners to make yourself sound like a teenage troublemaker,” she said.

“It’s complicated,” I explained.

“Aren’t we all?” she smiled.  Her eyes were more green as she leaned in towards me.  “It’s your time.  Read me a few pages from your story,” she suggested.

“Um.”  I took a breath.  “I’m not great talking about myself. I mean, I can ramble with the best of them.  You know what I am, so you should know some of the things I face.  I closed the connection between a Russian sorcerer and a Dragon.  Naul.”

“Ah,” she said.

“Ah, what?” I asked.

“I may make exclamations when things make sense to me, but I don’t want you trying to change your story for that. I will attempt,” she said, moving so one of her legs was underneath her, “to not interrupt.”

“You just sounded like you knew the name.”

“I hadn’t known you were the Dragonslayer.”

“I’m not.  And that’s why I’m here.”  I frowned.

“To not slay Dragons?” she said, somewhat teasingly.

“It’s all tangled. I didn’t kill her.  I just wish I could tell everyone that. I’m sorry that I hurt her on one level, and on another, it was totally self-defense.”

“Would you do it again?” she asked.

“Yes, no, wait…” I had to take a breath, and it was suddenly harder to breathe.   “I don’t know.”

She stayed silent, so I thought about it.  “I…maybe.  If put in that position again, yes. Yes, I would.  If I could avoid it, though, I’d rather do that.”

She nodded. “That seems fair enough.  Why does it bother you?”

“How does it feel to be known as a murderer? Even to be accused? If I killed anyone, it was leaving Artur and Doloise there… I don’t even remember how I got out.  I just know She’s there, in my mind if no where else.”  I tried again.  “You know, when Shelob impales herself on Sting, she goes bleeding the foul ichor and dives deep into her webs of darkness in Minas Morgul. It doesn’t say she dies.  This is…like that.”

“You left someone behind?” she asked.

“I don’t know if I can begin at the beginning.  But yeah, it bothers me. There’s… there’s time lapses in my head. A year stolen, a few minutes or hours or even days because of this.  Sure, I’m behind on some television, but wouldn’t someone have noticed? I mean, really noticed?  Or even …cared?”  I think my voice broke a little on that last.

“If you were wondering, that didn’t actually sound like you were whining,” she said, anticipating my immediate self-denigrating thought. “Why would you feel emotionally distant to others?”

I thought about it. It was interesting phrasing, not allowing me the refusal, but at the same time, not insisting that I did. I appreciated it. I turned it around in my head for a moment.

“I am afraid,” she continued, “that ‘why’ questions can be frowned upon in therapeutic situations. There may not be an answer that you can directly anchor to, or is even relevant, but you seem like someone who needs to fix things. If you have an answer that you can attack with a wrench or similar tool, you might be able to adjust your thinking.”

“Well, yes, that’s me,” I agreed. “Generally. Sometimes even if I feel like I won’t get it except intellectually for a long time.”

“Well, yes, that’s all of us,” she teased. Did I mention how pretty her smile was? I wouldn’t consider myself a “smile” guy, since I was 63.4% a legs guy, and a good 28.2% a breast guy, but 8.4% was up for grabs. Or feels. So to speak.

“That common?” I sounded surprised, even to me.

“Some of us go through life sensitive, some of us so much that we’re raw and scraped by every wind of fortune. Most of us build shells against the scouring winds of experience, but at the same time we need to put our mind in focus and interweave it with our heart and body. It’s a pleasant place when the three are in harmony.” She shrugged. “Now,” she said, “I’m willing to take you on, as it were.”

“Student? Client? Padawan?” I asked.

“Thrall,” she shushed me. “But this is like the other events you’ve described.”

“There’s a catch?”

“A quest,” she said. “An adventure.” She paused and looked me square in the eyes. “Payment.”

“Oh,” I said. I don’t think I gulped, but it was that kind of sudden sound.

She laughed. “I promise, I won’t make you slay a dragon,” and I wanted to laugh as well, but the smile never made it to her eyes. Her pale, pale eyes.

“I appreciate it,” I said, swallowing down my concerns and the laughter that had never quite made it out of my throat. “Theft? Murder? Arson?”

She stared at me.

“Murder, then?” I was hoping she’d pick up the reference, but then, I was hoping I hadn’t actually gotten it right.

“Perhaps. If you’re not clever enough for any other resolution,” she said. She turned away. “Would you like some coffee? Tea?” She started to get up.

“I’d like an answer,” I said, which was probably pretty abrupt, given how these things generally went. I wasn’t into waiting or being mollified by hot liquids, or negotiating or whatever courtesies were involved in her delay. I felt I’d already satisfied the demands of Hospitality.

“I’d like a pony,” she said, but turned back. “I need something before the explanation, if it’s all the same to you. I’m offering you something as well, because I am a lady,” she schooled me on that last.

“Something like a shot of whiskey?” I asked.

“That’s available if you’d like. Or a couple of beers.”

“I’d take one of those,” I said.

“Alright, so let me say it correctly. “Coffee, tea, beer?”

“Beer me,” I said.

She went to the refrigerator – I could see the light from the door, and hear the clinking of bottles. She was in the kitchen for a moment. She brought out a couple of glasses, but I shook my head and she left hers on the small end table as well.
I twisted the top off of mine and took a long drink. Sometimes I wonder why I developed the taste, and sometimes I was reminded by the nourishing aspect of it, cold and refreshing. Of course, I like my cola the same way. Still, I could taste hints of honey and maybe something nutty in it, and I felt a bit better.

She drank hers in smaller sips, her hand wrapped around it. “I haven’t left my house in,” she looked up at the mirror behind the couch, “three years? The shields are strong, but they’re not portable.”

That’s what I was feeling. Comfortable, lived-in, yes, but stagnant, too. A wall of discarded skins. I shivered.

“You let me in,” I said, confused.

“A calculated risk,” she said. “Come here,” she said, and she stood up.

She led me into the kitchen, and where I would have expected a pantry turned out to be a door to stairs leading down into some sort of basement. The walls were painted blue with stars in a style somewhere between clip art and cartoon and still realistic. There was magic in the art, but it wasn’t her magic.

She turned on a switch, and a string of intense led lights wound itself down along the banister. I followed her down the stairs into what was a finished space in dark purple and copper. There were electric candles and warm lights, but besides the almost blindingly bright decorative white of the stairs, all the illumination was yellow and gold. It looked warm. Heavy velutinous fabrics with rich colors draped across lounging chairs of the type I thought were described as “fainting couches.” The walls were covered in murals of abstract colours or soft rugs. The floor was a thick carpet in that grape jelly colour.

“I operate a hospital,” she says. “A hospital for those with special needs.”

I looked around, but there was only ourselves. She looked at me with half a smile, waiting for something.

I took a moment to extend my sensitivity slightly. If I thought the shields were like steel above, this was stone, kevlar, and some kind of science fiction force field in honeycombed patterns in clever little bowls around the chairs.

“Wow,” I said, impressed besides myself.

“A comfortable prison, eh?” she said, turning around. “There are no patients here.”

“Is…” I started. I stopped. “I don’t get it. This is a beautiful set-up. Is that the problem? You need me to put an ad on the backpage of the local alternative rag? Crags Place?”

She smiled indulgently, but her eyes were dark again, and it was sad. For a moment she looked like Naul, and I felt a wave of panic, but it went away as she stepped back, managing to gracefully drape herself across one of the chairs.

“I had a patient. His name was Vasil Greyn.” She pointed to a seat, and I sat down.

I stood right back up as the chill managed to get past my neck and straight to my spine. The hair on my arms stood up, and I felt as if something had not only stepped on my grave but started to pull me into it.

“What the–” I started.

“He had something inside him. A doorway to something else,” she said. She wasn’t looking at me, but past me, into the long darkness. “I tried to close it.”

She was quiet for a while.

“What happened?” I asked. I found another seat, close to her. I didn’t know if I was supposed to touch her, but this seemed to be a moment that needed it. Maybe it was anchoring her to the now, to the physical reality. I reached out and took her hand in mine. It felt strangely intimate, and yet appropriate.

She squeezed my hand and let it go. Another sad smile. “I closed it, of course.”

I waited for her to elucidate, and when she didn’t I started. “Soooooo?” I made it long but hopefully not petulant.

“I made a mistake.” She looked at me, shaking her head and coming back to the present. “I closed the wrong door. I closed it the wrong way. I left the evil inside and locked the human away.”

I felt my lips making a swear word that didn’t leave them in sound. I had… I had never really considered that an option. Sure, it was metaphorically possible, but from practice… What belonged in this world stayed when a door shut. Things returned to their origin. It was the point of the piece, part of the ritual, untangling the worlds where they strayed together, cutting the threads, all the analogies pulled them apart. Even when I did what I did to Naul, it wasn’t cutting pieces of her off, but closing the sources of power to which she was connected.

“Tell me more.” I took a deep breath. “What do you mean by evil?”

“Is everything a,” she used an obscenity, “philosophical question with you? Evil. Evil exists, little boy. It exists in smiles, in the unrelenting sunshine, in the glint of the eye and the shine of the knife. It’s not shadows and in the dustbunnies under the bed. It’s right there whistling and jogging behind you. It tips its hat to you and goes on its way, and all you feel is the fear of its passing. A fear you shove aside,” she stood up. “You shove it aside and go on, but the poison in it has already touched you. You speak a word to the next person you don’t mean, born of that fear. That passes on the poison. They know you don’t mean it, but what was it you asked? If everyone feels the difference between what their mind knows and what their heart knows? You’ve poisoned their heart. Their mind was immune. How long do we last with a poisoned heart?” The last was almost yelled at me.

“We can last quite a while with poisoned minds,” I said. “We grow antibodies. We rarely purge them clean, but some poisons are a chemotherapy of the soul.” I stayed sitting, and my voice was calm.

“And we calcify our hearts,” she shook her head. “He’s out there. Hurting who knows how many, and yet lost.”

“The human condition,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I demurred. “I was being cynical.”

“And how often are you passionate? In a positive fashion?” she asked me. “You think self-denigration is normal?”

“For me, maybe,” I was hesitant.

“But what about for a child? They love openly. They love fearlessly.”

“Children are selfish and cruel,” I said. “They have no sense of boundaries, or of proprieties.”

“Proprieties that have changed with ‘civilization’,” she retorted. “I am not denying that there are places children need to develop; they are immature, after all, and have transformations to make… but look at them in the sense of their emotional beginnings.”

“No original sin?” I asked. “They are blank slates?”

“We know better than that, in both cases,” she said, and she came back to sit down. “We all are imbued with the map of our histories, the changes that were made to our cells by experience, the personalities that nurture us, the memories that are stamped in our roots, exposure to magic… Some of this is transferred genetically. Who knows how much? Perhaps there are family curses that affect all humanity, but no matter how original the sin, the burden is so small as to be interesting only to mathematicians, much as is the level of our being cousins to each other.”

“Yeah, poking badgers with spoons is so last decade,” I sighed. “But children would totally do it.”

“That’s science,” she laughed. “Medicine is poking dead things with sticks. Psychology is wondering why we want to poke things with sticks. Sociology is wondering why that thing we poked with a stick is mad. Physics is how it moves when we poke at it with a stick. Biology is poking live things with sticks. Math is how many things and how many sticks.”

I chuckled. “Business is trading the best sticks for poking things? Politics is organizing stick poking expeditions? Religion is asking why it’s so satisfying to poke things with sticks?”

“More the reasons why it is right to poke things with sticks,” she suggested.

“Overruling the study of sociology. Of course, my religion says poking kittens with sticks is just wrong. Poking clams with sticks, well…”

“That’s a dirty euphemism and you should be ashamed of yourself,” she chuckled.

“That’s not what I meant,” I protested.